Ragged Lady — Volume 2 eBook

She could not know what a triumph he was making for
her; and it was merely part of the magic of the time
that Mr. Ewins should come in presently with one of
the ladies. He had arrived in Florence that day,
and had to be brought unasked. He put on the effect
of an old friend with her; but Clementina’s
curiosity was chiefly taken with a tall American,
whom she thought very handsome. His light yellow
hair was brushed smooth across his forehead like a
well-behaving boy’s; he was dressed like the
other men, but he seemed not quite happy in his evening
coat, and his gloves which he smote together uneasily
from time to time. He appeared to think that
somehow the radiant Clementina would know how he felt;
he did not dance, and he professed to have found himself
at the party by a species of accident. He told
her that he was out in Europe looking after a patent
right that he had just taken hold of, and was having
only a middling good time. He pretended surprise
to hear her say that she was having a first-rate time,
and he tried to reason her out of it. He confessed
that from the moment he came into the room he had made
up his mind to take her to supper, and had never been
so disgusted in his life as when he saw that little
lord toddling off with her, and trying to look as
large as life. He asked her what a lord was like,
anyway, and he made her laugh all the time.

He told her his name, G. W. Hinkle, and asked whether
she would be likely to remember it if they ever met
again.

Another man who interested her very much was a young
Russian, with curling hair and neat, small features
who spoke better English than she did, and said he
was going to be a writer, but had not yet decided
whether to write in Russian or French; she supposed
he had wanted her advice, but he did not wait for
it, or seem to expect it. He was very much in
earnest, while he fanned her, and his earnestness amused
her as much as the American’s irony. He
asked which city of America she came from, and when
she said none, he asked which part of America.
She answered New England, and he said, “Oh,
yes, that is where they have the conscience.”
She did not know what he meant, and he put before her
the ideal of New England girlhood which he had evolved
from reading American novels. “Are you
like that?” he demanded.

She laughed, and said, “Not a bit,” and
asked him if he had ever met such an American girl,
and he said, frankly, No; the American girls were all
mercenary, and cared for nothing but money, or marrying
titles. He added that he had a title, but he
would not wear it.

Clementina said she did not believe she cared for
titles, and then he said, “But you care for
money.” She denied it, but as if she had
confessed it, he went on: “The only American
that I have seen with that conscience was a man.
I will tell you of him, if you wish.”